Pirates aiming for win at home against City in MTN8 semi

Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro is anticipating another difficult encounter when the Buccaneers host Cape Town City in the second leg of the MTN8 semifinal tie at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday at 3pm.

Riveiro is pleased that his team managed to get the away goal in the first leg played at the DHL Stadium on Wednesday night.

Even though Relebohile Mofokeng’s first-half goal gave Pirates the edge going to the second leg in Orlando, Riveiro says Pirates will go for a win at home on Saturday.

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“You can just imagine how important it is [to get the away goal] because it’s much better than the nil-nil score. So I’m happy with the goal, but unhappy with the goal we conceded because we want to win every game. And Saturday, it’s not going to be an exception.

“It’s another game on Saturday and trust me, we are not going to think that a nil-nil score will be enough. We’ll play to win the match. The 1-1 is nice because we got the away goal, but we’ll go for the win,” Riveiro added.

Riveiro’s counterpart Eric Tinkler wasn’t happy with the draw, saying his team deserved more.

“The whole idea was to dominate for the whole 90 minutes. Had we done that I think we would’ve come away with more than the 1-1 draw. But the response from the players in the second half, I’m happy. I saw more positives this evening than the negatives,” said Tinkler.

“We take those positives and go to that side and play with the same energy, the same intensity, but with a more positive mentality, knowing that we need to score the away goal. We created enough chances tonight to tell ourselves that we have a great chance [of winning the game in Orlando].”

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Following the intense game in Cape Town, Tinkler said he would apply his mind on whether to make changes for the second leg in Orlando.

“I’ll give it a thought tomorrow (Thursday), but I’m not one of those coaches who like to make massive changes. But we’ll see tomorrow how the players feel. Ideally, it’s to talk about the altitude, the later in the week we arrive, the better. But I’ll discuss that with the team manager to make sure that we don’t arrive there too early.”